i.

Sit in the nothing. Talk to nothing. Do nothing. See what nothing offers, probably nothing.

A boy asked his mother one night how  it is to survive in a 

country where survival is a furnace & his body like a metal goes

 a meditation on the 

    passing of Thich Nhat Hanh

my fists   concuss    the easter        egg

   juice    beet  lips       of                christ

You were in a wheelbarrow that day

when the wind overturned

trees, trashcans,

and I was being born.

On the modular couch, the fingers splays

against the curve of a collarbone, television

hands clutching bitter hand                               miserable callouses

Not on purpose. She makes the house payment one week and makes the same mortgage payment the next week.

There is a country where my voice

must hold its daily reckoning

and question this allegiance to

A whale appears in the bay

ahead of schedule

and far from the Pacific.

I know a door that leads to somewhere

in the dark and walking right through 

the door is like walking through a house

My first landlord had jowls like an old Walter Matthau

and walls covered in exotic animal carcasses.